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Baby face surfs into Big Apple

Xavier Samuel from checking the waves to testing the watersPhoto: Steven Siewert

Emily Dunn and Josephine ToveyApril 14, 2008

AT 24 years of age, Australian actor Xavier Samuel may be
in danger of Luke Perry syndrome, named for the Hollywood
actor who played teenager Dylan McKay in Beverly Hills 90210
well into his late 20s.

"I don't have any facial hair, so it will be a while before I
play the gruff leading man," Samuel said. "Maybe one day I'll get
to play my actual age. For now my baby face has condemned me to
play the teenager."

So far Samuel's teenage roles have included his feature debut in
the Australian high school drama 2:37, the lead role in
September (the first feature from the Tropfest Feature
Program, in which he plays a white, rural teenager who befriends an
Aboriginal boy in the 1960s), and as a "goth" who learns to surf in
the new Australian film Newcastle, alongside Barry
Otto and Kenny star Shane Jacobson, with cameos
from footballer Andrew Johns and pro-surfer Layne
Beachley.

While 2:37 premiered in Cannes in 2006 and
September recently screened at the Berlin Film Festival, it
is a case of third time lucky for Samuel, who heads off to New York
on Wednesday to see Newcastle premiere at the Tribeca Film
Festival. After New York the Adelaide-born Samuel, who now lives in
Sydney, will head to Los Angeles "to meet with people and talk
about possible projects".

"I had to learn to surf for the film I almost drowned a
couple of times," he said of his training for Newcastle.

"I had my hair dyed black, and purple streaks for the fringe. It
is not often you see a pasty goth kid down at the beach learning to
surf."

TRIBECA II

Expect tumbleweed in the actors' haunts of Bondi this week,
with another local off to test drive a film at Tribeca.

Unlike the hundreds of Australian actors to head to Los Angeles,
Jeff Prewett didn't even need to leave home to be cast in a
Hollywood movie.

Film writer Garry Maddox reports that the former soldier and
stuntman was one of more than 1000 actors to audition for the
supernatural thriller The Objective in an international
casting call on the internet.

After filming an audition in his lounge room with a borrowed
video camera, Prewett got a role. That led to four weeks making the
film in Morocco, an experience he sums up as "hot".

In the movie, directed by Daniel Myrick, a co-creator of
The Blair Witch Project, Prewett, 37, plays an Australian
sniper attached to an American military unit in Afghanistan.

The producers of The Objective believe he is the first
actor to be cast by internet for a major film role. "It's like
Blair Witch in the desert," says Prewett, who turned to
acting and stunt work after four years in the Australian infantry.
He has gone to New York for the movie's world premiere at the
Tribeca Film Festival on April 23.

DANCERCISE

Some critics have questioned how many of the moves in Channel
Ten's So You Think You Can Dance can be classified as
dancing. Well, now it's official. Tonight the reality show will
include

an acrobatic performance from a circus duo - albeit from the
circus behemoth Cirque du Soleil.

Guest performers Arthur Davis and Shenea Booth are
members of the Cirque du Soleil special events team, a group that
performs at the Super Bowl, the Oscars and on various TV
programs.

Cirque du Soleil says the duo are two-time world champions in
acro-gymnastics, a floor discipline without apparatus, and made the
finals of another reality television contest, America's Got
Talent, in 2006.

We rest our case.

THE RATINGS RACE

Life In Cold Blood might describe a typical day in the
programming department at Channel Nine, reports our popular culture
correspondent David Dale. But it's actually the name of the program
hastily rushed to air to replace The Power Of Ten, a game
show axed by Nine after it got a mere 521,000 viewers last
Monday.

That was Nine's second big axing of the year (the first was
Monster House) and Nine was looking at a third after
Wednesday's ratings showed the much publicised My Kid's A
Star could tempt only 878,000 in the mainland capitals. It may
be dawning on Nine that Australians don't like shows in which
people are humiliated.

The only content working for Nine now is Gordon Ramsay'sKitchen Nightmares and Underbelly (which it can't
play in Melbourne). Seven's Gladiators lost 300,000 viewers
from its opening night, but still was among the week's most watched
shows, which were: Border Security (Seven)

The ABC drew 1.33 million for Bob Irwin, father of the
late Steve, on Australian Story and SBS managed 480,000 for
China's Great Wall.

Pay TV's most watched shows between Sunday and Friday were a
rugby league match between Wests Tigers and Panthers (244,000) and
an AFL match between Adelaide and Port Adelaide (238,000).

Seven averaged 28.2 per cent of the prime time audience on free
to air TV, while Nine got 26.6, Ten 22.2, ABC 17.3, and SBS
5.7.

REWIND: The pantyhose murderer

Pantyhose strangulation is the sort of macabre plotline most
actors would only hope to be associated with once. But when the
veteran Australian actor Peter Flett takes to the stage next
month in the crime mystery The Girl From The West Of The
City, it will be the second time he has delved into the
gruesome plot, after he played a prime suspect in the pantyhose
strangler mystery on Number 96.

Back in 1975, Flett was enjoying unprecedented celebrity in his
role as Michael Bartlett on the groundbreaking show. That year's
cliffhanger plotline centred on a violent serial killer, who
murdered women in Paddington with a pair of stockings. Not-so-savvy
Australian audiences labelled Flett a pantyhose murderer for that
whole summer.

"I was standing on Wynyard railway station on Christmas Eve,"
says Flett, "when this woman came over and started belting me with
her bag and calling me a nasty piece of work!"

Though it was later revealed Flett's character was innocent, the
association stuck. Now, more than 30 years later, the actor is
playing the father of a young woman found strangled with a pair of
stockings in the opening scene of the play, which opens at the Joan
Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith on May 8.

Flett, who has a more wholesome role on the upcoming episodes of
All Saints, finds the coincidence amusing. "Having been
proved innocent all those years ago I don't have any problem with
it!" he laughs.

THREE QUESTIONS: Maz Compton

What is your favourite music video?

Thriller. I am a massive Michael Jackson fan, and this
clip was so leading edge for its time and was one of his best
efforts.

What goes on backstage at the MTV awards?

Everything you can imagine. Star turns, diva fits, costume
changes, make-up demands, and that's just the boys in the bands. It
is hectic and a bit surreal. It is quite possible to literally run
into a mega-star at any given moment. Invites into dressing rooms
are common, everyone performing and presenting is calm, everyone
else is usually tearing their hair out. It makes for good
people-watching.

You've graced the cover of Christian Woman magazine -
how do you deal with the ungodly rock industry?

It's possibly the coolest industry to work in, so I get amongst
it, rock-out, enjoy every second of it and stick to my values.

Maz Compton is a VJ on MTV and has been nominated for
favourite female personality at the 2008 Astra Awards for pay
television, to be announced next Monday.